"The gravest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-intentioned, but without understanding." - Justice Louis Brandeis

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

The real reason the Democrats won

There has been much bloviating and gnashing of teeth about the reasons for Republican losses in the election. There is really only one primary reason for the defeat - the newly overt alliance between the liberal mainstream media and the Obama campaign. All other factors are subordinate to this one.

Consider the subprime mortgage crisis. It is clear that the main reason for this debacle is the fact that Congress and government regulators forced Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the banks to make loans they would not otherwise have made. The bad loans were then packaged by Fannie and Freddie for purchase by the other organizations which got into trouble once Fannie and Freddie became insolvent. Fannie and Freddie were both established by the government.

Thus, it was regulation itself, and not the lack of it, that caused this meltdown. Democratic politicians like Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Chuck Schumer resisted efforts to reform these regulations before it was too late. Barack Obama himself was somehow the 2nd largest recipient of Fannie and Freddie political donations, even though he was only a junior senator.

If the politicians who had resisted reforming Fannie and Freddie were Republican, does anyone doubt that fact would have been trumpeted to the heavens by the left wing press? If John McCain had been one of the biggest recipients of Fannie and Freddie cash, wouldn't the media have made that point on a daily, if not hourly, basis?

Thus, a problem caused by regulation largely imposed by Democrats was reported in such a way that lack of regulation by the Republican administration is thought by the public to have been the cause. Because of inaccurate and misleading media coverage, people voted for Democrats who were responsible for the destruction of trillions of dollars of Americans' savings. When blame for such huge problems can be shifted from Democrats to Republicans by the media, is it any wonder the Republicans lost?

Other examples of major media bias abound. Consider the case of Sarah Palin's $150,000 budget for clothes. This was reported for days as a major issue, while Democratic expenditures like the more than $800,000 Obama spent on vote fraud specialist ACORN were completely ignored.

While Palin's clothes budget was being scrutinized, the media had no interest in investigating Obama's ties with former terrorists or the fact that his campaign had turned off automated safeguards against fraudulent donations, which fueled his enormous fundraising campaign.

If the media had played this election down the middle, it is doubtful Obama could have been nominated, much less elected. Imagine if McCain or any other Republican had associated with the despicable people Obama is connected with. The media wouldn't have allowed any Republican to have a significant political career after these sorts of associations were discovered.

The examples one could provide of media bias during this campaign are almost endless. While McCain had his own problems, Obama had far more, which either weren't reported, were minimized, or were excused by his allies in the media.

The constant barrage of media slant was more than enough to cost McCain and the Republicans the 4% of total votes needed to change the outcome of this election. Evan Thomas, assistant managing editor of Newsweek, said during the Kerry/Bush campaign that liberal media bias was worth 15% of the vote, and media support for Obama has become much more overt since then.

The main question facing Republicans is what to do about this state of affairs. Those like Sarah Palin who favor a conservative agenda can expect to be subjected to a nonstop assault by the liberal press. People who get their news from these organizations will be affected by the slant, even if they know the media is biased. Conservative Republicans will have a very difficult time winning elections unless the media alliance with the Democratic party can somehow be neutralized.

What the Republican Party and individuals can do to help redress this situation will be the topic of a subsequent post.